So to start off, I have been following RW since the beginning, was accepted into all the beta rollouts but never had the money to purchase the phones.
First I was on a Cricket, then I moved to GoSmart Wireless, always with a crappy out-of-date phone, and for a techy like me, it was a nightmare as I tried to do stuff with my phone to only have it lock-up for a minute. I struggled to receive/send calls and my service was spotted at best.My college requires me to have a weekly phone call with a student-mentor and having the calls drop with my old service was a constant pain in the butt and I was always in a constant state of worry as I waited to hear back from jobs that I had applied for, because I was worried I missed the call, which happened frequently.
About a month ago, my wife had some major medical stuff going on, and she was texting me and calling me, but I didn't get them because my service and phone were terrible. Finally, she got a hold of me (after I walked into the ER), she glared at me and said "Get your new phone".
I plan on breaking this review into two parts, the phone and the service/company. So here goes:
Republic Wireless:
Like I said, I have been wanting to join since the beginning but never could afford it. When I heard that RW was picking up the Moto G for $150 I was excited and couldn't wait till I could afford it. After making my order, it getting sent out the next day, arriving quite some time later (I hate shipping companies), I was excited to start up my phone and see if things would be different. I was extremely pleased. Activating my account was a snap. Transferring my phone number was a snap. Making and receiving phone calls was finally happening! My office is out in the garage so I was worried about my connection to WiFi/Cell but service was great and the handovers smooth if I decided to take a walk while making my phone calls. I would hear a click, half a second of silence, and then the call would pick right up. I was told sometimes my voice drops, but that isn't the fault of RW but rather my 9mb/1mbps connection. I want to upgrade my DSL but that will have to wait till after I get a good job. I've been extremely pleased with my service and connection.
Moto G:
I bought the 8GB version because that was all I could afford at the time. I was thinking I wouldn't use the 8GB all up as I never did on my old phones, boy was I wrong. I knew the phone didn't have an SD card slot and thought I wouldn't miss it, again, I was wrong. I constantly take pictures of my kids and videos of them as well and that burns through the 8GB rather quickly. I did get the free 50GB of space from Google but I like having all my videos/pictures on hand, but I got use to browsing them from the internet (again thank you RW for good service) and after taking them, auto-backing up, I would delete them off my phone, and just browse them on the internet on my G-Drive. However, I was still running out of space because I am now playing a lot more 3D games because this phone has the power to play them unlike my old phone(s). Man, this phone is a power-house! My only complaint is that I cannot root/modify it because I don't want to screw with RW app that manages connection. That was a big disappointment as I am a huge mod nuthead. I have designed 3 ROM's for an Android tablet where there was only two developers, me and my friend who taught me how to create ROM's. So not being able to modify the phone was a bit disappointing BUT I really didn't need to modify the phone as it performs amazingly. There is an occasional glitch where after going to the menu of apps, I wouldn't see anything but it happens only occasionally.
I have been extremely pleased and happy with what I paid for.
